Resource identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are persistent identifiers which can be used to consistently and accurately reference digital objects and/or content. The DOIs provide a way for the ADS resources to be cited in a similar fashion to traditional scholarly materials. More information on DOIs at the ADS can be found on our help page.

Citing this DOI

DOIs should be the last element in a citation irrespective of the format used. The DOI citation should begin with "doi:" in lowercase followed by the DOI with no spaces between the ":" and the DOI.

doi:10.5284/1000190

DOIs can also be cited as a persistent link from another Web page. This is done by appending the DOI Resolver with the DOI. This would look like:

http://dx.doi.org/10.5284/1000190

However, if it is possible it is best to hide the URL in the href property of the <a> tag and have the link text be of the form doi:10.5284/1000190. The HTML for this would look like:

Nature of the bibliography

Purpose of the bibliography

In order to achieve the strategic aims of the Trent Valley 2002, the purpose of the Trent Valley GeoArchaeology Bibliographic Database (TVGAB) is to provide a single means of access to all bibliographic sources for the archaeology of the Trent Valley. Specifically, this database will:

Facilitate the access of information on archaeological works across the whole Trent Valley area.

Provide bibliographic sources to allow the Trent Valley to be seen as a single geographical unit.

Maximise the effectiveness of future work on the Trent Valley by providing a gateway to all resources in an integrated way.

Preserve a record of past and current unpublished resources for the Trent Valley.

In order to achieve the principal aims of the project, the TVGAB has two key objectives:

To identify bibliographic data pertaining to archaeological projects within the Trent Valley area

To record all bibliographic data to a standardised criteria and classification scheme

Topic and content of research

The resources at the heart of this project are the substantial volume of published sources, including books, journal and web-articles detailing the archaeology of the Trent Valley, that exist either at a regional, local or artefactual level. Bibliographies of aspects of this material already exist in academic literature. Synthetic regional treatments such as those published as part of The English Heritage East Midlands Archaeological Research Framework Project and Knight & Howard 1994, Archaeology and Alluvium in the Trent Valley, for example, have provided important introductory bibliographies of archaeological research within the area. Similarly, SMR databases commonly cite bibliographic references as part of the monument recording process, but these, by their very nature, tend to be geographically-circumscribed datasets relating to only part of the Trent Valley area.

In addition to these published sources there are a large number unpublished 'grey' literature documenting archaeological work within the Trent Valley. These sources can relate to specific archaeological interventions, such as desk-based assessments, fieldwork and specialist reports, or take the form of more general or thematic surveys, produced by, for example, individual researchers or student dissertations. Whilst many of these sources are logged with SMR archives, further unpublished material is often held in museums, by archaeological units, universities, and by individual excavators and researchers.

In line with the principal objectives of the project, the TVGAB brings together these various sources in one unified dataset. However, given certain resource constraints, the database aimed at comprehensive coverage of a prioritised range of data. These included: 'grey' literature reports; publications relating to specific archaeological interventions; and bibliographic references already cited within SMR records. In addition to these data, TVGAB includes more general literature on archaeology, monument surveys, heritage management and specialised artefact analyses, as resources and time allowed. Equally, although some citations of popular magazines (such as British Archaeology), current awareness literature, and newspapers were included, these were not comprehensively searched for references.

As the database is intended to operate only as a gateway to identifying resources, data on relevant articles and reports includes only citation information in addition to a limited classification index. Data fields have been structured to conform to the Harvard author-date citation system for books, articles and 'grey' literature, based on the AGPS Style Guide 5th ed. (AGPS 1994). The details required for this system are:

name/s of author/s, editor/s, compiler/s (surname, and initials or given name), or the institution responsible

year of publication

title of publication and subtitle if any

series title and individual volume if any

edition, if other than first

publisher

place of publication

page number(s) if applicable

The relationship of this system to the data-fields in the TVGAB are outlined in Section 4.1 whilst details of the classification criteria applied comprise Section 4.2. It should be noted that the database only includes abstracted information where this has been supplied in electronic form from existing datasets. In these cases, data is included in a non-searchable 'Further Information' field and is retained in its original format.

Geographical and temporal limits

The River Trent is 280km long, rising on Biddulph Moor in North Staffordshire and running east and northwards to the Humber. Trent Valley 2002 takes the whole floodplain of the Trent Valley and its major tributaries as its geographical focus. Within the use of the Bibliography an area described by 88 parishes dissected by this floodplain is taken as the geographical limits of recorded data. These parishes are listed in Appendix 1. No temporal end-points to archaeological data were introduced, though for the practical purposes general surveys of post-medieval and twentieth-century historical, cultural and/or political development were not comprehensively searched or entered. Reports and volumes published up until July 2003 (or up to the date of SMR visitation, Table 2) were entered, though necessary omissions to recent, post-c.2001, interventions were imposed when reports were still active in the planning process.

Methods

Programming

Data collection and validation was co-ordinated from the University of Nottingham following a schedule developed to maximise data entry over the project life. The project involved a two-stage programme of data collection: the collation of existing electronic archives of 'grey literature' (e.g. desk-based assessments, field evaluations, post-planning determination projects, research projects, building surveys, estate management surveys and geophysical investigations, university theses, specialist reports) and published sources (e.g. journal articles, monographs, web-articles); and the physical checking of this data. The second stage of this programme involved visiting the offices of archaeological curators, contractors and consultants and library collections. All major SMRs with data on the Trent Valley were visited, in addition to those archaeological units/trusts with substantial records of intervention in the survey area.

Database construction was carried out in consultation with the ADS. As part of this liaison an optimum data structure was identified.

Collection of published sources

In addition to 'grey literature' listings, published sources have been entered from the SMR records of the counties of Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire, in addition to electronic data produced by keyword searches of the BIAB; COPAC; The Early Medieval Coin Corpus.

Additional published sources were entered into the database from literature searches. These included physical searches of the library holdings of the University of Nottingham East Midlands collection; the Institute of Archaeology, University College London; The British Library; and the Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, graduate dissertation holdings.

Consistency and error checking

Data comprising the Bibliography has been checked to two degrees of accuracy. Data was designated as 'checked', when recorded by two or more sources, and 'final checked' when the citation was physically inspected for accuracy.

An outcome of this method of error checking is that a small number (c.8%) of records comprising the TVGAB represent unsubstantiated data referenced to only a single bibliographic listing (Table 5). These citations have been neither 'checked' nor 'final checked'. In some cases these might be reports produced by contractual fieldworkers but not deposited to relevant SMRs. In other cases, they represent bibliographic citations not identified in any of the targeted libraries. Note regarding the source and status of these data is made in the 'Further Information' field.

Unless errors have been identified in received data, the original formatting of electronic data has been retained throughout. Unique identifiers back-linking data to source datasets are included in the 'Identifier' field, and the 'where seen' field records the first place where volumes were physically checked. Inconsistencies between data received from two or more sources were generally resolved by the physical inspection process. Note of these changes and further clarifications are made in the 'Further Information' field. All editorial comments are included in the 'Further Information' field in square '[ ]' brackets.

Procedures for updating, combining, or enhancing source data

Bibliographic data comprising the TVGAB has been received form a variety of diverse sources. In order to facilitate the back-linking of data to original material, unique identifiers have been used whenever possible. In addition to the TVGABs own unique identifiers, received digital information can be re-identified by the inclusion of source codes in the 'Identifier' table.

International Standard Book numbers (ISBN), International Standard Series numbers (ISSN) are used where these have been identified

Whilst many of the citations derive from these original sources, all included data has been modified: firstly, to fit the TVGAB field structure, and secondly, in the addition of classification criteria outlined in the section on Data Standards. Transcripts of original material which do not fit the data structure, including abstracted information, have been retained within the 'Further information' memo field. This data has not been comprehensively edited and often includes data artefacts from these originating sources. As it was felt that this information could aid the re-identification of sources (often data includes page numbers, interpretative information, report format, etc.) it has been retained unedited in the TVGAB. Both the citation and abstracted information is wholly in the public domain.

Currently no procedures are in place to allow for the revision of the TVGAB dataset, nor to supplement the dataset with annual updates.

Content and structure

Data standards

Book details

BookID

Each publication reference has a unique individual number produced as an Access AutoNumber

Author / Editor and Relationship

Names are normally given in full in the form in which they appear on the title page (with surname preceding initials). Names recorded are qualified as 'author', 'editor' or 'auth/ed' (in the case of articles / chapters authored by the same individual editing the volume), in the relationship field. Multiples of all variations are recorded in the same field.

Description

Describes the type of document as either:

"An article/chapter in a published monograph"

"An article in a published serial"

"A published monograph"

"An unpublished document/manuscript"

Imprint

Year of publication. NB: for serials where volumes span periods, e.g. 1979-80, only the later date has been entered.

Title

Title of the article or chapter

Volume Title

Title of the Monograph or of the unpublished report / manuscript. Square brackets [ ] denote editorial expansions of the original (or a translation if the title is not in English).

Series and Volume Number

This comprises the Series/report series or Journal title, without abbreviations. The VolumeNumber field records either journal volume number, or series identifiers in the case of client reports, with the part number following (in brackets) if required.

Page From and Page To

The extent of an article or chapter in a serial or monograph is identified by a run of page numbers, entered in separate fields.

Publisher Name and Place of Publication

Records publisher name or that of the originator in the case of unpublished works and the town in which the publisher is based. British publishers are given precedence when a work is published simultaneously in different countries. Where it is stated that a commercial publisher is acting 'with' or 'for' another organisation this is indicated after the publisher's name.

Location information

Location Country Region County Parish Site

Location descriptors entered as separate fields. Sources are located to smallest possible area, e.g. county, district or parish. LocationSite gives a free-text description of the site location as recorded in the cited document.

Period information

Period

What the periods discussed. Period qualifiers used are derived from the ADS OASIS project criteria as follows:

Prehistoric - 500 000 - 43

Palaeolithic - 500 000 - 10 000

Lower Palaeolithic - 500 000 - 150 000

Middle Palaeolithic - 150 000 - 40 000

Upper Palaeolithic - 40 000 - 10 000

Mesolithic - 10 000 - 4000

Early Mesolithic - 10 000 - 7000

Late Mesolithic - 7000 - 4000

Neolithic - 4000 - 2000

Early Neolithic - 4000 - 3000

Middle Neolithic - 3500 - 2700

Late Neolithic - 3000 - 2200

Bronze Age - 2500 - 700

Early Bronze Age - 2500 - 1500

Middle Bronze Age - 1600 - 1000

Late Bronze Age - 1000 - 700

Iron Age - 800 - 43

Early Iron Age - 800 - 400

Middle Iron Age - 400 - 100

Late Iron Age - 100 - 43

Roman - 43 - 410

Early Medieval - 410 - 1066

Medieval - 1066 - 1540

Post Medieval - 1540 - 1901

Modern - 1901 - present

Undated

Other details

Originator

Name of the Organisation to which data can be sourced, e.g. Trent & Peak Archaeological Unit digital archive. Where the field is empty, this denotes data not derived from existing datasets.

Identifiers

These provide back links to the Originator, by referencing unique numbers included with supplied data. In the case of SMR listings, report numbers are prefixed by R. Other forms of unique identifiers recorded include International Standard Book numbers (ISBN), International Standard Series numbers (ISSN) or University of Nottingham Shelf Marks.

Language

Main language of the documents abbreviated as follows: English (en), French (fe), German (ge)

URL

Web address if published electronically. This is included for articles in online serials ('e-journals') that are available via the Internet (such as Internet Archaeology). Accepted standards recommend that the date of access is quoted when citing online references. This has not been recorded and the final date of the project 1/1/04 can be taken as date of accession. It is assumed that all URLs are correct when entered into the Bibliography and at this final date.

FurtherInformation

Includes a range of further information, not directly searchable, including descriptions of the source in terms of format, appearance and presentation. This field also includes various data received from source databases, including HBSMR and AIP information not directly of relevance to the TVGAB field structure. As such, a number of abbreviations are included unaltered from the source data, these include:

'pls' (plates = half-tone illustrations/photographs)

'figs' (figures = line drawings and small plans)

'ills' (unspecified illustrations from Briefing book references)

'tables' (tabulated data. NB graphs are 'figs')

'refs' (indicates the presence of five or more references)

'maps' (separately bound plans and other cartographic material)

'index' (specific to the reference)

'microfiche' (indicates that the item is accompanied by material on microfiche).

The edition for re-issued documents may be recorded. Normally, only substantially revised versions will be included as separate entries. Editorial comments are included in square '[ ]' brackets. Of particular note are '[unchecked]' comments, recording those sources not identified physically, and '*C14' comments, recording cited radio-carbon dating information.

Where Seen?

Place where volumes were physically inspected, e.g. Nottinghamshire Sites and Monuments Record Office (Notts SMR)

Classification criteria

The classification scheme used for the Bibliography is a modification of that developed for the biab by Cherry Lavell for the British Archaeological Abstracts in the late 1960s. Entered as yes/no data fields all documents can fall into multiple non-hierarchical classifications of the following:

Monuments are defined by the NMR Monument type thesaurus criteria and are further divided into:

Religious, ritual and funerary

Including all monument types listed under this heading by the NMR Monument type thesaurus

Domestic

Including all monument types listed under this heading by the NMR Monument type thesaurus

Archaeological objects / Art history

Includes discrete studies of archaeological objects, (usually portable) resulting from past human activity, including metal-detector and chance finds. Included are also more general artefact and art historical surveys, including architecture.

Discussion

Data weaknesses and variability in coverage

An overview of collected data has identified several trends in the pattern of research and publication in the Trent Valley area (Table 5). How much these patterns reflect actual archaeological work within the survey area is however more difficult to assess. In part, trends in the data are likely to be the result of data collection and maintenance procedures at Sites and Monuments Record level. For instance, the inclusion of published sources data supplied by the SMRs of Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire allowed for the more rapid identification of relevant works than was possible for other areas where more orthodox library searches were adopted to collect data. Similar procedural issues are likely to undermine the comprehensiveness of 'grey' literature listings for different regions. It is likely that coverage of bibliographical data is more complete for those areas where SMR listings were supplemented by bibliographical archives of the major contractual archaeology units; for example southern Nottinghamshire (Trent & Peak Archaeological Unit) or north-west Leicestershire (University of Leicester Archaeological Service). In this regard it is unfortunate that greater co-operation was not granted the TVGAB by major contractual units operating in the archaeologically-sensitive areas of eastern Nottinghamshire and western Lincolnshire, such as John Samuels Archaeological Consultants or Lindsey Archaeological Services.

Region

total grey

total other

checked grey

%

checked other

%

unchecked grey

unchecked published

total

total checked

total %

Derbyshire

216

462

194

89.8

429

92.9

22

33

678

623

91.9

Nottinghamshire

658

1082

581

88.3

1039

96

77

43

1740

1620

93.1

Leicestershire

109

155

93

85.3

151

97.4

16

4

264

244

92.4

Lincolnshire

101

183

85

84.2

176

96.2

16

7

284

261

91.9

North Lincolnshire

106

183

101

95.3

177

96.7

5

6

289

278

96.2

Staffordshire

211

182

201

95.3

172

94.5

10

10

393

373

94.9

Stoke-on-Trent

92

152

89

96.7

150

98.7

3

2

244

239

98

Multi-district

38

272

15

39.5

217

79.8

23

55

310

232

74.8

Total

1531

2671

1359

88.8

2511

94

172

160

4202

3870

92.1

Table 5:Data entry by county and unitary authority

A summary of these data sources show that of the 4,202 references entered, interventions in Nottinghamshire, perhaps unsurprisingly, considerably outweigh those in other regions, making up nearly 43% of 'grey literature' sources, and 41% of other references; with interventions in Staffordshire and Derbyshire next common. This is roughly comparable with figures comparing the size of the Trent Valley 2002 Project area within each of these counties; with Nottinghamshire comprising 35%, and Staffordshire and Derbyshire c. 16% respectively (Baker 2003, 24). Of note is the dearth of 'grey' literature from North Lincolnshire, which at c.7% of the total stands in some contrast to the nearly 148.2 km2 area making up c.22% of the Trent Valley; although it is assumed that many of the published sources for North Lincolnshire have been subsumed within volumes assigned to 'Lincolnshire' or 'Multi-district'.

In most cases it was possible to identify c.90-95% of these reports either in County SMRs, via AIP references or directly from source contractual units. However, on average a shortfall of around 30% was recognised between reports produced, and cited independently via either the AIP, the English Heritage Excavation Index for England, or by field-work practitioners, and actually archived in the relevant SMRs. In order to address this imbalance the TVGAB was granted a months extension at the end of 2003 to continue the programme of re-identification by contacting contractual units directly. As a result of this extended programme an overall success rate of nearly 90% across published and unpublished works had been achieved two weeks before completion of the project (Table 5).

Several further areas of weakness in the collection and collation of reference data are recognised within the TVGAB:

here is a general lack of synthetic works in the database. As a result of the prioritised list of sources outlined in Topic and content of research, the dataset does not include more general archaeological or historical surveys of relevance to the Trent Valley area.

There is weak coverage of work pertaining to post-medieval and modern cultural heritage.

Given the methods of collection adopted it is probable that the TVGAB represents a subjective dataset of sources, i.e. the dataset is in part dependent on what has already been cited elsewhere. Given necessary constraints in resources is was impossible to address this subjectivity by more random data-collection procedures.

The difficulties in identifying unpublished university reports, student dissertations and theses suggest that these organisations are currently not ensuring that work is logged with SMR archives. This represents a significant loss to the dissemination of academic research on archaeological works in the area.

Although the employed classification criteria was shown in practice to be versatile enough to provide for the clear and logical arrangement into general topics, some adjustments could be made to future versions of the TVGAB to permit the definition of more specialised criteria. For example, the large number of citations referring to archaeological notes or find-spots (e.g. those recorded in the journals Archaeological Excavations, East Midlands Archaeological Bulletin, Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 'Archaeological Notes', etc.) could have been designated unique descriptive criteria.

Recommendations

Several recommendations are suggested:

Significant difficulties were encountered in collating those electronic references received from different sources, such as SMRs, AIP or English Heritage Excavation Index for England. It is clear from information received that data standards have not been adopted multi-laterally across these organisations. The MIDAS data standard defines sources as any physical material that has been used to provide a source of information for the inventory. Examples include publications, unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, maps, plans, photographs, museum collections, sound recordings and film footage, databases and other digital media. The lack of standardisation suggests an urgent requirement for these organisations to adopt systematic procedures in line with standards established by the AACR2. This recommendation has the further benefit of allowing the direct and mechanised exchange of data between 'grey' literature listings and library corpuses.

In keeping with the above recommendation, the apparent lack of systematic classification principles in archaeological citation suggests a need to establish more specialist sorting concepts within archaeology as a discipline. Given the wide range of potential user-groups for archaeological bibliographical databases such as the TVGAB, a logical way of classifying citations needs to be established allowing all readers to easily find what they're looking for. Although the NMR monument type thesaurus provides some guidance on how the breakdown of archaeological concepts can proceed when applied to defining archaeological materials, this system is only useful for one aspect of archaeological activity. In order to provide for a more universal archaeological classification, thesauruses defining categories - in the sense of facet analysis - need to be established. Beyond archaeological materials (e.g. monuments) classification categories might also include: properties (e.g. political, economic, ideological, environmental, etc.); parts (time and space criteria); processes (e.g. urbanisation, subsistence, ecology, etc.); activities (excavation, interpretation, etc.); or agents (e.g. contractual units, university researchers, etc.).

The shortfall in 'grey' literature recognised in SMR holdings suggest that the migration of reports from contractual units to SMRs is currently not being comprehensively carried out. It is probable that a proportion of this shortfall is the result of individually-logged specialist reports, later subsumed within final amalgamated reports. However, it is clear that greater metadata need to be supplied indicating a) the relationship between constituent reports, and b) the date of report production, its draft version, and its relationship to archaeological works. It is suggested that copies of all reports, including specialist reports, are logged at the relevant SMRs.

It is suggested that the TVGAB would profit from an enhancement of data pertaining to post-medieval and modern cultural heritage, in addition to further bibliographic surveys of published works, in order to address the lack of more synthetic data.

Although the use of primary SMR data in student research is a significant element comprising academic study, the lack of academic work archived in SMRs is worrying. Recommendations addressing this oversight may include the implementation of contractual obligations preceding the use of SMR data, or increased outreach work highlighting the importance of SMR archives.

It is suggested that a programme of annual updating is implemented in order to ensure the research potential of the TVGAB for future users.

Archive deposition

The complete documented database has been created in collaboration with the ADS from the outset. Final deposition with the ADS will see the TVGAB form a searchable special collection database linked to the ADS site-level catalogue for access on-line. No long-term commitment for archive enhancement is in place, though it is possible that future 'grey literature' updates will be provided as part of the ADS OASIS Project (Hardman pers. comm.). However, no provision currently exists to update published sources. As a record of previous (pre-2003) interventions it is nevertheless suggested that the archive be retained indefinitely by the ADS.

Additional copies of the TVGAB will be supplied to all the local authority SMRs in the Trent Valley.

This project was part of the Trent Valley GeoArchaeology 'Trent Valley 2002' project, funded from the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund administered by English Heritage. Further information on Trent Valley 2002 can be seen at: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aczkdc/TVG/

AACR2. Anglo-American cataloguing rules / prepared under the direction of the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, a committee of the American Library Association ... [et al.]. 2nd ed., 2002 revision. London: Facet Publishing for Chartered Institution of Library and Information Professionals